melbournebudgies

Wow! You will need to foster some of those babies out or be ready to hand raise the older ones as she starts to get too many. If she does manage to hatch them all the oldest will be about three weeks old when the you gest hatches and you shouldn't have any trouble taking on those older ones I think If you do want them all to hatch you will have to make sure the box stays VERY clean, often onc the older ones start to poop lots the eggs get dirty and the unhatched ones die.

Maybe she is an opaline lacewing masking pied...

I have NO idea, I don't even know how many km it is. Happy to come up with something that suits us both if you like.

AV and I will be moving bird between our houses but both of us have closed top aviaries and also a large proportion of our irds will be in enclosed bird rooms (both converted garages).

Just spoke to the boy, he has to be there to start work on the 19th of January so it will be some time around then when I start driving back. He'll probably get there around the 14th and the kids and I will fly over and meet him there. Spend some time pottering around Perth and then we'll head back.

And also since you are in the same geographic region as each other birds are probably contacting the sam sorts of bugs from wild birds at both locations anyway. I don't quarantine my aviary birds from my inside birds if I bring a pair inside for breeding... Healesville Sanctuary actually quarantines their captive birds before releasing them to the wild, they are more worried about introducing a bug from the captive population into the wild birds. They manage the wild birds and the captive birds as a single unit as part of the recovery program.

We will have a trailer so there will be plenty of space for luggage as the dogs will have to go in the boot area of the NEW car (which we are hoping to get in the next few weeks *happy dance* ) I'm up for the company as long as you don't mind the LONG drive. I don't want to do it all in one big long (broken up for sleep) stretch, I'd rather take my time and see a few of the sights along the way. It sounds like he will be going over during December some time

On the band there will be a couple of numbers or a symbol and then a number that run at right angles to the rest of the writing. This is the birth year. Don't forget though that if it says 07 then it could still be ess than a year old

I would think any that are manufactured for birds would be fine. They would have to be pretty stoopid to use something toxic.

They should be atleast a year old before you breed them

I agree that the grey is opaline. I could only see the bottom picture before. I am saying grey wing because you can see the grey tips on the larger secondaries. Also as a request, when you post pictures can you post only one per line so that they are underneath each other. It makes iy very hard to read the post when photos are lined up next to each other.

The grey is normal. The 'cinnamon' is actually a grey wing looking at the picture, not a cinnamon.

It will be our brand new car so the air con will be getting a work out When you have kids and dogs in the car already you have to have a good air con so we should be fine

It was only about $25 difference in the price we were quoted for accompanied birds or unaccompanied (If we flew too it was about $55 if they shipped them without us flying it was around $80) so if you really wanted them anyway it's worth just getting them shipped. We figured we could fit about 5 birds for that price.

I suspect we will be stopping LOTS. Besides I figure if I'm gonna drive ll that way I might as well see the sights

Are you gonna drive Liv or fly? Don't forget that if you fly they will still make you pay the birds airfare

Umm, with birds a large proportion of disease are transmitted by feather dust and faeces. The law of Gravity means feather dust and droppings fall to the ground unless you have some sort of large fan blowing them back up into the air It isn't at all like the human flu where viruses and bacteria float around in the air in droplets of moisture. With proper quarantine practices you should be able to contain any nasties. I have had a number of sick birds here in the last few months, some with the highly contagious psitticosis. It's so contagious that I actually got sick too! BUT because I was using very strict quarantine procedutres with my sick birds it was kept contained and didn't get passed on to my other 40 birds. If I had put that single sick bird in my aviary chances are I wouldn't have many budgies right now as psitticosis kills quickly. But if you are prepared to risk the life of your beloved pets there isn't much I can do to stop you

Hmmm... time to start saving

A number of times this year I have been extremely thankful that I quarantine all my new birds. If they are coming from a source that I trust such as a friend I may do a slightly shorter quarantine (and then re assess them as to whether to do a full quarantine) but otherwise every bird gets ATLEAST a month from when they were last healthy (ie. if they are unwell during the initial quarantine then I wait until they start to look healthy and count a month from then)

Thanks for the info AV, I have put them on Doxy and I have also put the lories on it too so fingers crossed we have seen the last of the sick birds. I'll also more often use the Ivermec.

Not sure at tis stage Kaz, atleast a few days. We will probably stay in the defence force housing over there.

December sometime by the sound of things my other half will be transferring to Perth. He has to take a trailer over with his stuff and his motorbike in it and I plan to fly over with the kids and then drive back with the car. So I will be plotting a route from Perth to Melbourne. Any suggestions? I need to work out where to stay that's kid and dog friendly and which route I will be taking. I might also send a few travel cages in the car for any feathered hitch hikers

Good news I have a tiel who lost a toe in a fight and had the bone sticking out like yours does, we fixed him up and he doesn't even notice it now. He'll be feeling better before you know it

I think Throwback has done it, but you won't get any secrets out of him

I just wanted to clear something up which has bothered me for a while. I have noticed that most people on here say not to feed iron rich foods as they interfere with the absorption of calcium, however it is actually the other way around. Lots of studies have shown that mid level intakes of calcium interfere with the absorption of iron. This goes for humans too and is a stipulation of the iron supplements that I take for sever anaemia - take with OJ NOT milk, as the milk will stop me from absorbing the important iron. For those who want more info I hunted down one study on it, haven't read the whole thing but here it is anyway: http://www.alphavit.ru/files/34/calcium_iron_absorption.pdf